Move the Chains
by Queen Lua
Summary: Dorian said he'd change Tevinter, said he'd change everything—but he's still lingering at Skyhold. The Magisterium turns its eye toward him. An assassin moves against him. And Leliana has a plan.
1. Chapter 1

When Magister Tilani stood on the senate floor and moved to nominate Dorian Pavus for a seat in the Magisterium, just one month after Corypheus's defeat at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, the ensuing debate was so heated as to nearly come to blows. Nearly all of the dissent and quarreling in Tevinter happened behind closed doors, and sessions of the senate were dull, previously-agreed-upon affairs—so when a public session actually managed to stir a discussion _at all_ , it was news.

And as for _this_ session? Magister Sidonia had called Magister Valroy a callow, talentless hack to his face. Two magisters pulled out staves and threatened to duel, until some magisters with better sense pulled them apart. Accusations and denials of former Venatori affiliation were flung across the chamber like so many arrows. _That_ was more than just news—soon as the session adjourned, tongues were set flapping all across Minrathous, and word of the audacious meeting traveled across Thedas like wildfire.

Of course, Sister Leliana's ravens traveled faster than any fire.

When she informed Dorian of the news, he puffed up like a peacock. "Magister Tilani has _remarkable_ nerve, I'll give her that. I always did like that woman." He rummaged through a nearby shelf, pulling out a cloak and shrugging it over his shoulders. "Red's quite the fetching color on me, don't you think? Like the magister-robes. Though, I always thought the _trim_ on those things were hopelessly tacky, I wonder if I could have them altered…"

Dorian smiled broadly. Leliana didn't smile back. "You may wish to see this as well," she said, proffering a small bundle of parchment.

"Mm, what's that?"

"Some correspondence my agent intercepted between a few magisters, shortly after the session convened. They worry that you are both too popular and too radical. Several of them are entertaining threats on your life."

Dorian rolled his eyes. " _Please_. Let's see here." He took the parchment, scanning through—all the usual suspects, and a few new names as well. "Of course Ponticus would say that, he loathed my family even _before_ I dragged our fair name into disgrace—and it's cute when Iravus says things like this, as though anyone thinks his opinion actually matters. How he ever got his seat, I'll never understand." He handed the papers back to Leliana. "Rather toothless, I think. What a lovely fuss they're making, though."

"Then will you be returning to Tevinter?" Leliana asked, her tone carefully neutral—but her eyes belied her interest.

Dorian laughed at that—but not so boisterously as usual; this laugh had an edge to it. "Going? Hardly. Not yet, anyway. Let's keep them wondering. More fun that way."

Leliana arched one cool eyebrow but said nothing. The following week, more ravens poured in—magisters and altuses of every stripe, inquiring after Dorian's intentions, inviting him home or warning him away, and more reports from Leliana's agents. She passed them all along to Dorian, but Dorian scarcely looked at them. Busy on Inquisition business, he claimed.

And a week after that—that's when the dreams started.

* * *

The first night, it was a simple nightmare. He woke, gasping, in the darkness, and it took a long minute for him to slow his breathing again, to release the vicegrip he had on his pillow.

Dorian hadn't had something so mundane as a _nightmare_ since he was an apprentice, too inexperienced to properly control the shape of his dreams, his time in the Fade. And it was odd for him to have so much trouble remembering a dream. He snatched at the fragments in his mind, but they all slipped away: a familiar face he couldn't quite name, a Circle he'd been to long ago, a strangely-colored bird.

Odd, very odd. But it _had_ been quite a few weeks. Saving the world and all the aftermath that entailed. Probably he'd just been run more ragged than he'd thought. He shrugged it off.

The next night there wasn't any nightmare, but his dream was—off. Just a bit off, some small things tweaked, things a lesser mage might not have noticed at all—etched motifs of the Tevinter heraldry in decidedly non-Tevinter buildings, an odd tilt to the floor. The sort of details that mere demons didn't tend to tweak. But Dorian shrugged at that, too—the Fade was strange in the best of circumstances, so what was just a little more strangeness?

Then: another nightmare. Dorian couldn't remember how or why he came to the Grand Plaza in Minrathous—rather, the fade-touched version of it—or who the bright-eyed hooded mage was, how they met, why they were fighting, why _were_ they fighting? Dorian raised his hands in defense, but the mana wouldn't come to him, and his feet were too sluggish to move. The bright-eyed mage threw a blast of ice and he was freezing, freezing—

And he woke. He woke, shuddering, as if from cold, though he was still underneath three layers of blankets. He blinked slowly as awareness crept back to him, but still felt so _cold_ —the blast had struck his hands first—he pulled his left hand toward his face, squinting to see by the dim torchlight.

And his hand was _coated_ , coated in little flakes of ice crystal. The crystals were melting fast onto the bed sheets, but the edges were still distinct.

That— _that_ should not be possible.

Dorian felt a second chill seize him, the chill of realization. Of course Dorian had _heard_ of Dreamers, he was _descended_ from Dreamers, he knew the _theory_. But the sort of Dreamer who could reach _past_ the fade? who could touch the physical realm, even so slightly? There hadn't been a mage like that for—well, a century at least, maybe longer.

At least, not one that anyone knew about.

Dorian didn't fall asleep again that night.

* * *

Seeing Dorian awake before noon was enough to give anyone pause; seeing him awake before _dawn_ was enough to halt Leliana in her steps entirely. She'd been on her way to the war room when she caught sight of the mage, hunched in a corner of the library, a wild scatter of papers before him and a deep furrow on his brow. More striking than the hour, even, were the papers themselves—looking more closely, she saw that they were the letters from Tevinter, the letters he'd been letting pile up, ignored, for weeks.

"Anything of interest?" she asked, with forced casualness.

Dorian blinked—he hadn't noticed Leliana was there—but then plucked a letter seemingly at random, announcing in a breezy tone: "An old classmate of mine made Senior Enchanter while I was away. Brielle Bellarous. Nearly as brilliant as me, without even an _ounce_ of the manners; apparently she's caused quite a fuss by accusing one of the Prandreo boys of using blood magic. She's right, of course, but it'll be _most_ interesting to see whether her rank holds over his family's considerable piles of gold and influence."

"Ah." Leliana paused, waiting for more. "By 'interesting', I rather meant—"

"Right. That was the _pleasant_ bit of interest," Dorian said, sighing. "The _unpleasant_ bits of interest are sorted by their type." He gestured to each pile of letters in turn: "Suspicious invitations to remote estates _just_ outside the Inquistion's proper area of influence. Letters politely dissuading me from trying for a seat in the Magisterium. Letters _im_ politely dissuading me from aforementioned seat. Several concerned friends wondering at my intention to return, a few rather _shady_ enchanters asking that I lend my power to theirs, and one rather frighteningly neutral letter from the Archon himself." He pressed a hand against his temple. "I rather envy the Fereldens, at times like these. With them, at least, finding the man who's trying to kill you is as simple as looking for whoever's holding a sword."

One letter remained curiously unopened. Leliana's eyes went to it instinctively—then she noticed the seal on it. House Pavus.

She looked back to Dorian, and placed a hand on one of the larger piles. "Might I examine these? My agents may have some use for them."

Dorian blinked and stared. Perhaps she was being too intrusive. But after a moment, he laughed. "Certainly, certainly. I'd rather expected you'd steamed them open already, to be honest; what a polite spymaster you are."

Leliana smiled at that. Some of them she _had_ steamed open, of course. The rest had simply seemed easier to ask for.

* * *

When Dorian went to the Skyhold alchemist, Elan, asking for what should have been a perfectly _mundane_ potion, he had to repeat himself three times: "Draught of Dreamless Sleep."

The elf wrinkled her nose and frowned.

Dorian sighed. "Do you have any? You've _heard_ of it, yes?"

"I haven't ever heard of something called that, no. Is it anything like the sleeping potions we keep back there? Made with elfroot and dawn lotus?"

 _Southerners_. Dorian bit his tongue on a cutting remark, since it wasn't poor Elan's fault that alchemical education was so hopelessly lacking here in the south, but _really_ , this sort of potion was something even a middling Circle alchemist knew how to make, back home. "It's an old Tevinter brew," he explained. "I might, hm, I've got a text in my belongings that should have the process outlined, if you could go off of that?"

Elan nodded slowly. "Sure. Send it my way and I'll see what I can do."

 _See what I can do_. Really, just the reassurance Dorian needed.

He found the old text, eventually, after an hour's searching and scouring and coughing from dust. He certainly wasn't an alchemist himself, but once he had the book, he turned to the recipe and went over it with red pen, double-underlining all the tricky bits and adding exclamation points for emphasis. Wouldn't do the have her bungling the recipe on top of all this other mess.

* * *

Elan told him it would take her a week to brew the draught. No matter; alcohol worked for killing fade-dreams _almost_ as well as any potion. Or. Well, no, not nearly as well as a potion, but it at least made him feel less anxious about _not_ having the potion, and it wasn't like Dorian wandering about with drink in hand was an unusual sight around Skyhold.

He was milling about in the main hall when Cullen came by, his face darkened and his stride all bluster and fluster. Dorian cast a glance toward the dungeon's entrance—from what he'd overheard earlier in the day, the commander must be on his way to see that ward-slash-prisoner of his, that Samson fellow. Somehow, the old templar still clung to life, despite both the death of his former master _and_ all that ghastly red lyrium business. Dorian couldn't imagine what use the Inquisition was getting out of the man, at this point. By the look on Cullen's face, he supposed that Cullen didn't know, either.

"Off to see your little charge?" Dorian called, teasing—hardly the first time he'd teased the commander, he made it too _easy_ —except, instead of just shrugging it off, or smirking and going on his way, as he usually would, Cullen planted his feet and turned to glare at Dorian, shoulders pulled tight, the sort of glare Cullen generally reserved for particularly meddlesome recruits. "Something to say, Dorian?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. Might not want to let that Samson fellow see your face like that, though."

"Might not want to…" Cullen shook his head, and dismissed Dorian with an exasperated wave of his hand. He went on to the dungeons, and as he went, he slammed the door so hard behind him that Dorian nearly dropped his flask.

"Touchy," Dorian muttered, wiping off a bit of the brandy he'd spilled. Maybe he should've offered the commander a bit of drink. Take the edge right off.

* * *

The edges are hazy but the warmth is real, too real, like he's had too much to drink. Probably he _has_ had too much to drink; that's why he's sprawled on this bed, why his head feels so heavy. There's a dull roar downstairs—Dorian Pavus, skipping out on the party early, the guests must be so disappointed—and the air smells thick, like lyrium, like—like the smell of the Fade.

The Fade. Where he is, right now. Dreaming. He'd forgotten for a moment. Why had he forgotten?

A shape enters the room. He knows this room. From where? The bed is so soft beneath him, soft Antivan velvet on a thick plush mattress, he could sink into it forever—is sinking—no. He pulls himself up, presses his back against the headboard. How did I get here? he asks himself. He can't remember, he can't remember because he's in the Fade, and something's off, it shouldn't be this hard to _move_ —

He turns to the shape again, the shape in the doorway, gliding toward him now. The shape has a form, then a figure, then a face—and the name startles out of him like a bird, how many years has it been since he last saw that face: _"Rilienus."_ And it's a trick, Dorian knows it's a trick, but for a half-second he's too startled to move, and it's in that half-second the dagger flashes.

Dorian shouts and scrambles back. His feet get tangled in the blankets and the swipe misses him by a narrow inch. He half-tumbles off the bed, throws his hands in front of him, shouts something arcane—fire leaps out, but the figure shrugs and the fire rolls off him—

Dorian knocks the figure back with a quarterstaff, a quarterstaff he's just conjured. He can shape the Fade, too. Maybe not as well as this, this… this _thing_. But enough. Dorian rushes for the door—but it's locked. Slams into it, blasts fire at it, nothing. The thing's getting up and, oh, not good, not good.

"Wake up," he hisses to himself. The figure lunges again, Dorian dodges, but it's stronger and Dorian can't keep jumping away forever. So all he's got is the frantic thought, over and over, _wake up wake up wakeupwakeup—_

—and he wakes, gasping.

The shock of it _feels_ like being stabbed, the damned night-air is so cold and the waking so sudden. He's clutching the bedsheets, clutches them tighter, lifts his head a few inches but everything still feels so _heavy_. Slowly, painstakingly, he pulls himself upright, starts pooling his mana around him. His eyes jump from the door, to the walls, to the ceiling, watching for movement, watching for shadows, watching for anything, ready to strike.

The Inquisition flag in the corner is the thing that convinces him he's back in Skyhold. Safe. For now, at least. Probably. He lets out a long sigh, and lets himself fall back.

Dorian knows demons. Demons talk, they wheedle, they plead and tempt and lure. But that—that was no demon.

A miss. A very near miss.

His body is aching for sleep, but he can't let it. Not now. With a groan, he forces himself out of bed and into the halls, staring hard at the shadows as he passes by.

* * *

In the predawn hush, throughout the stark towers of Skyhold, the only moving thing was Leliana.

This precious hour was the only time in her day she spent truly alone, and she always spent it the same way. As she crept up the old wooden stairs to the rookery, the steps creaking beneath her, she could hear the low answering croaks from her ravens, trained by experience to waken at her slight steps. She heard them shaking their feathers out, heard their little feet click-clacking, well before she turned the last staircase-spiral to see them.

And there—someone new.

She nearly jumped at the sight; no one had _ever_ been here in the morning before her. The man was turned away from her, but the outline was unmistakable—Dorian, slumped against a post, his hair mussed into an ignoble snarl. She stared for a moment. No movement. Asleep on his feet, perhaps?

She watched a moment longer, before venturing, "Dorian?" Then, more loudly: "Dorian?"

He started at that—yes, he'd been sleeping—and he jerked his head around, blinking dazedly. She waited, patient, as he took in his surroundings, but when he finally saw her, he managed a broad, groggy grin. "Leliana, my dear. Just the lady I was hoping to run into."

Leliana quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I've got a bit of a problem, I'm afraid," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Those magisters who want me dead? Seems as though one of them has the gall to actually _do_ something about it. I went through the papers you gave me, and a letter from an old friend in Minrathous, and—"

"Magister Valerius."

Leliana smiled at Dorian's baffled expression. "I, uh, yes. Him."

"I'd already made a note of his interest," she explained. "My agents apprehended an assassin of his near the Orlesian border."

"Really, now." Dorian fidgeted and glanced to the side. "Ah—what _sort_ of assassin, if you don't mind my asking—the stabby-blades sort, or the mage-with-mysterious-powers sort? Or some exciting new variety I hadn't thought of?"

Leliana stared at Dorian for a long moment. He wouldn't quite meet her eyes. "Blades," she said finally. "What's this about?"

"It's… nevermind. Just, I don't think that's the only one Valerius sent after me, and the other might not be so easy to apprehend, you see—"

"Would you like me to have Magister Valerius himself taken care of?"

 _Taken care of_. How delicately put. Dorian considered a moment. He wasn't fond of entering into all that assassination business; it was a bit to Tevene, even for him. But he remembered the dream, that very near miss, and felt a slight shudder.

"Please," he said at last. "And quickly, if you could. I'd rather like to sleep at night."

Leliana nodded, and brushed past Dorian, toward her ravens. She picked up a bucket of grain and began pouring it into the ravens' feeding-bin, just as she did every other morning. Dorian nodded, as if to himself, and moved to leave—but then, Leliana sighed and set the bucket down. "I suspect Valerius is not the only one among your enemies willing to resort to such means," she called to his back. "I could look into the matter, if you like."

 _Look into the matter_. Dorian laughed, turning to face her. "Fun as that sounds, Sister, if I discredit or kill every backstabber or blood mage in the Magisterium, there shan't be anyone left to handle matters of state. Who would dictate the lyrium tariffs, or decide on the color scheme for the next Grand Ball?" He gave a disapproving cluck of his tongue. "Anarchy."

"Perhaps that would not be unwelcome," Leliana countered, an edge creeping into her voice. "You _do_ wish to see change in Tevinter, yes?"

Dorian startled at that. The way the words curled around Leliana's lips, cold and hard—they sounded too close to an accusation. He hadn't heard that tone from Leliana before, removed as he was from all those messy war table chats, from those hushed meetings with her agents—but it reminded him of what he'd seen of her in the future-that-never-was.

Leliana gazed back at him—despite the harsh words, she remained utterly unassuming, one hand folded over the other, that modest Chantry hood hiding her hair. But watch her hand turn, and fate turned with it. Andraste bless, _this_ was the lady who was nearly named Divine.

"Things back home are… delicate," Dorian muttered, dropping his gaze to the ground.

"I have delicate hands."

"What's your interest here, anyway? Tevinter's no business of yours."

"My interest is the good of the Inquisition, of course," she said. Most of the truth. Part of the truth. "The Ventatori are in retreat now, and largely discredited—but I must keep an eye on things. And," she added with a smile, "you _did_ come to _me_ , Altus."

"Right." Dorian reached a hand to the back of his neck, fidgeting. "Look into it, if you would—but don't do any, ah, alterations of the course of Tevinter politics without consulting me first, if you don't mind. It's… it's delicate."

"As you wish," Leliana said, and turned back to her ravens, a soft sort of dismissal. Dorian lingered a bit before departing, trying to read something in that inscrutable expression of hers. Why did that little smile of hers make him feel so uneasy?

* * *

As dusk fell, outside the stark walls of Skyhold, the mage stood alone.

Four layers of clothes on and she _still_ felt the cold. She didn't care _how_ many times that merchant had told her that cold was _nothing_ so long as she had the right preparations. She had furs and the best boots money could buy and she _still_ felt the cold, felt it at her core, the kind of cold that seeped under her skin and made her breath soggy.

For the fiftieth time, she wondered why anyone lived in the Andraste-forsaken south. And for the fiftieth time, she wondered if Valerius really wanted _her_ dead, instead of Pavus. The task certainly _seemed_ suicidal enough. She'd been evading the Inquisition's patrols by skulking around in a handful of obscure caves, on the edge of the territory, but that wouldn't last forever. Already, there had been some close calls—a scrap of dried meat she'd dropped had had scouts combing the area for hours. This Inquisition, whatever else it was, was certainly _alert_.

The last patrol had passed by a half hour ago, and there was no sign of them returning. She sighed, and turned back toward the little cave she'd scouted for herself in the pale cliffside. Sleeping made her vulnerable, but she couldn't finish the job without sleeping.

She wasn't particularly Andrastian, but she whispered a little prayer to herself just the same: _let me find him tonight_.

And she slept, and as she slept, she dreamed.


	2. Chapter 2

Elan couldn't brew the draught any faster than she already was, and Leliana couldn't make Valerius dead any faster than her crows could fly, and Dorian couldn't find useful defenses against Dreamers in any book in the library, no matter how hard he looked. Which left him with his only option: just stop sleeping.

Easier said than done, of course. The first two days weren't _too_ awful. He'd done his share of sleepless nights during his studies, when a particularly promising avenue of research opened up, and he'd lost track of time. Or, of course, when he'd been working on the time-magic with Alexius—nevermind how it turned out in the end, nevermind how Alexius's determination had turned to desperation, into talk of blood magic and worse. Before all that, their research had been a thrill. A desperate thrill—it was impossible to forget that Felix's life was on the line, that his condition worsened by the day—but a thrill nonetheless.

The pair of them had always been complementary talents, Alexius's experience and caution reining in Dorian's wilder notions, and lending support to Dorian's better flashes of insight. They'd pushed through all the familiar time-related territory in a week; mere days after that, they were constructing spells that not even the famed time-scholar Christenden had touched on in his ten volumes on the topic. When they managed the spell that finally slowed the spread of the taint within Felix, that finally gave the boy more time, and lessened his pain—they'd finished their work just as the sun was rising, and they could hardly believe it themselves, and Dorian had been giddy at the victory. Shame that he'd never gone back to Minrathous after that; how he would've loved to crow about his findings at the circle there, probably would've had that Brielle girl seething with jealousy—

But it hadn't turned out that way, of course.

The memory of his old mentor only stung a little, as he gathered his books and holed himself up in the library for this session of marathon studying.

But the only worthwhile topic he could think of to research—Dreamers and Dreaming and all the magic that came with it—didn't make for particularly scintillating scholarship. Mostly, it consisted of hunting down obscure references to Dreamers who may or may not have even existed, and puzzling over the corresponding texts, written in a dozen different ancient and obscure dialects of Tevene. Languages had _never_ been his strong suit, and trying to manage them while on his twelfth cup of coffee was only slightly preferable to stabbing his skull with an ice pick. He thought he could make it to the second sunrise, at least—but instead, he woke up at three in the afternoon, slouched over his desk, face-first in a book, with some passerby sniggering at him as he startled back into awareness.

No dream-attack had happened, thankfully. But he'd ruined a perfectly good volume of one of Sister Petrine's histories with his slobber. Pity.

At that point, he began to consider enlisting help. Cullen came to mind—sensible, responsible, not given to prying. But when Dorian thought of trying to explain the presence of a mysterious and powerful dream-assassin lurking in the Fade, he imagined the commander translating that to _demons! demonic possession! danger!_ and getting all… templar-y about it. No, that wouldn't do at all.

Not that the mages in Skyhold would be much better. An insufferably curious bunch, the lot of them; there would be no end to the questions and "helpful" suggestions that only someone trained in a harebrained southern circle would come up with.

Really, he needed someone who was given to straightforward solutions, and didn't ask too many questions.

So.

"Bull."

The qunari was lounging in the tavern when Dorian found him, holding a pint of that horrid-smelling ale that had sent some poor recruit straight to the healer last week. He tilted his head toward the mage: "Yeah?"

Dorian took a seat next to the Iron Bull, waved the barkeep away, cleared his throat, and looked him right in the eyes. "This will sound strange. But. I'm trying to not sleep, for rather tiresome and complicated mage-related reasons. I am planning to spend the rest of the night here. If you see me fall asleep, I would like you to punch me until I wake up."

For a moment, Bull just stared at him, like he didn't quite understand. Dorian sighed, preparing to explain it again, using even simpler words—but then a smile cracked on Bull's face, and he laughed so loudly that others started to stare. "You serious, Vint?"

"Quite."

"This isn't some sort of weird Tevinter foreplay, is it? Because I've got better ideas—"

"Bull, _please_ ," Dorian said, through gritted teeth. He'd resisted Iron Bull's none-too-subtle invitations so far—though, given how frustrated and tired and annoyed he was, the idea of blowing off some steam honestly didn't sound too awful right about now—oh he was not _nearly_ drunk enough to be entertaining this line of thought, the lack of sleep was clearly getting to him—and, right, the whole dream-assassin-trying-to-kill-him thing, that took priority. _Focus, Pavus._

Bull didn't push it. "Alright," he said, nodding. "So I get to punch you? It's a deal."

And so the night began.

At first, Dorian steadfastly rejected the pitchers of ale that Bull kept ordering for him—firstly, because the stuff was _wretched_ , and more importantly, because the alcohol would only make him more tired than he already was. Yet his resolve weakened when the barkeep pulled out one of those Tevinter vintages he was so homesick for, and being the only sober one at a tavern was hardly any fun at all, and Bull's coy little jibes about him being a teetotaler were becoming tiresome, and falling asleep at the bar from _boredom_ wouldn't be any better, surely?

So he ordered a glass of the Qarinus red, and then another glass, and then accepted one of those awful pints from Bull, and a few drinks later he found himself thoroughly contented. The room was warm, and the bard was singing the softest, loveliest little tune, he shut his eyes for a moment to take it in—

Then, _wham!_

Dorian hit the floor hard, startling awake. Bull was grinning above him. Dorian's arm ached, his beer was spilled everywhere, and the barkeep was giving him a rather savage look, but he was _awake_. Perfect.

Perfect the first time, at least. The second time, though, when he drifted off later that evening? _That_ earned him a dislocated shoulder.

"Sorry," Bull had said, as Dorian woke swearing and shouting, clutching his unhinged arm with horror. "You didn't wake up the first time I punched you, so—"

"Get a healer," Dorian shouted, and promptly passed out.

So much for that plan.

He woke, after a long while—that was the first surprise, that he woke at all, that he he'd dodged his dream-assassin again.

Also, he woke with his shoulder fixed, firmly back in its socket, which was a relief, even if the damned thing still ached worse than a wyvern bite. All the healer's potions and balms meant he couldn't help sleeping, they made him too drowsy, but that steady shoulder-ache made his sleep a shallow, fitful thing. Never deep enough for a Dreamer to get hold. Never deep enough for him to feel properly rested, either, but that was only a middling concern by now.

So, once the healer released him back to Skyhold, he threw away the pain-numbing draughts he'd been given, and took to whinging on and on about his arm (he wasn't above garnering a little sympathy or pity-favors here and there), and slept very little. After a week of that, he was ragged, and useless, and bone-tired, but he was still alive.

Then—one night, a bird blew right into his _bedroom_. Dorian nearly jumped out of his skin. He was jumping at everything by then: shadows, creaky floorboards, insects, himself. Not sleeping did that to you.

But the bird merely dropped a bit of rolled-up parchment, gave a husky croak, and flapped off quickly as it had arrived. The note it left behind had Leliana's seal on it. Dorian rolled his eyes. Of course. Such _was_ that woman's style.

He unfurled the scroll, and found a short note penned in her hand: _It is done_. Below that was a scrawled paragraph from one of her agents. Dorian skimmed it—said agent apparently was the one responsible for stabbing Valerius, and he went into some rather grisly detail on how the deed was done. At the bottom, clipped to the page, was a blood-spattered button, engraved with Valerius's seal.

Dorian rubbed the button between his fingers, considering. Couldn't be that easy, of course. Maybe Valerius had a particularly vindictive wife who would take charge of his affairs. Maybe it was never _him_ Dreaming at all, but some other mage Dorian hadn't accounted for. Maybe Leliana's quick work would just motivate others to come after him out of misplaced bravado. Maybe, maybe, so many maybes.

But, Maker's breath, he was _tired_ and _out of ideas_. Tomorrow Elan would have the draught for him, but _tonight_ he planned to sleep, and if the Maker saw fit to have him die then, well, he'd given his damnedest.

* * *

At the far edge of the fade, she senses him—a ripple in a steel-cool pond, a small bright stone slipping through liquid metal. A distant feeling, but heavy and distinct. She knows this feeling.

Dorian is back.

It's been a week since she last sensed him. He'd stopped appearing in the night, so she began taking sleeping-weed, to sleep through the days. But he wasn't lurking in the daylight, either. Probably, he'd started to suspect something—no one ever accused Dorian Pavus of being a fool. Not good, not good. She didn't have much of a backup plan if she couldn't hunt him in the Fade.

Maybe, she thought in desperation, maybe she was too far away. So she snuck right up to the edge of Skyhold, snuck _into_ Skyhold, and found an old storage room where she could hide. She hid under a pile of rusted old armor and slept there.

Still, her dreams contained nothing. But she kept at it—kept eating the sleeping-weed, even though it started to make her stomach retch, twenty hours of sleep a day was far too much—and she kept huddled in that dark, forgotten corner, and during her rare moments of wakefulness she nibbled at what little she had left of her rations, and thought very hard about anything except _what if he's warded me somehow, what if this won't work_ , because otherwise the sheer dread of it all would claw her sense away.

But tonight, she can feel him. She feels him now, the distant ripples of his presence breaking like little waves around her. He's here, here in the Fade. For how long is anyone's guess—but she doesn't need long. She is ready.

She breathes in deep, and pulls the Fade around her, bit by bit. This place is like so much potter's clay, to her—at first, it resists the touch, cold and unyielding, but she keeps at it, touching it with her mind-magics, kneading it, until it begins to melt toward her, sluggish but willing. Then she pulls it around her feet, and feels the ground becoming solid, feels the ground morph from dreamstuff into stone, gray and hard and smooth. She stretches her mind ahead of her, and the clay arches to form the shadow of a hall, and then tiles form on the floor, and a path stretches out before her.

She breathes out. She is ready.

She strides forward slowly, the pace of a pilgrim doing penance in the cloisters, every step deliberate. Steady and constant and detached. And focused, always focused, pushing the Fade a bit farther with every step. As she pulls closer to Dorian, she can sense more of him, senses his idling thoughts floating unrestricted through the Fade.

She will be upon him soon—she must choose where they meet—and after a moment's thought, she settles on the Circle of Minrathous. A setting familiar enough for her to recreate properly. And a setting familiar enough to _him_ that he may be caught off-guard. The Fade is so malleable to her now that these changes only take the barest thoughts—as soon as she thinks of Minrathous, she feels the Circle's great spire twisting above her, and with a little flick of her wrists, the corridor begins to glisten—first a dull pallor, but then the bright ivory and brilliant gold she remembers so well.

She presses forward. The Circle's grand antechamber is before her. Just one more alteration and the trap is set. This part is the trickiest, but she is ready—she pulls the Fade around her once more, pulls it _against_ her, and lets it touch her skin, shaping her form, clinging to her skin, her face, her eyes, lending her a new shape. Then, she strides into the antechamber.

Dorian's standing there, blinking. Dazed. Her doing. She can stagger people when she pulls them into her part of the Fade, confuse them, if only for a bit. And because he's dazed, he doesn't question the form standing before him, simply stares in bleak awe: "Alexius."

She offers only a wry smile. She hasn't the courage to try and imitate the man's voice; she only saw him a handful of times. It would give her away. In a minute, he'll notice how strangely silent his mentor is, he'll start to recover himself—but she only needs a minute.

"What brought you here?" Dorian asks. She ignores the question and steps closer, her staff gripped at her side. She doesn't bother gathering mana; magic isn't what kills, in the Fade. She's hidden the blade in the staff—the Fade-tipped edge is the thing that will make him dead, both here and back there. Dorian's scowling, like there's something he can't quite remember, but he's not raising his hands, not reaching for his own defense. He's almost in arm's reach and he's clueless. She moves her other hand toward the staff, moves to pull the blade, her heart's in her throat and her hand's on the hilt and on the next step she will draw—

—but something knocks her back, smashing all the wind out of her.

He's kicked her in the stomach; he's lunged forward; he's tackled her to the ground; he's got her by the throat.

It's so quick she doesn't understand what's happened. Was he feigning his confusion? Where did she misstep? The staff's been knocked out of her hands; she grasps wildly for it, but it's out of reach, and his knee is pressing hard against her stomach; she's pinned against the ground. She clings to Alexius's form, but the rest of the illusion starts crumbling around her—the tiled Circle hallways give way to the green glow and wretched-angled cliffs of the Fade, and Dorian's eyes become brighter and keener by the second, filled with a fury that terrifies her more than any magister.

"Clever trick," Dorian hisses in her ear, his grip tightening around her throat as the last bits of the Circle crumble around her. "I'd love to share some tea and discuss how you did it, once we— _wake up_."

* * *

He woke up.

He woke up with a gasp—and she had given up too much. Put too much of herself in the dream. And it _was_ a her, Dorian could sense that now. And where she was—he had only the _sense_ of it, but surely, if he hurried—

He was out of bed in seconds, throwing on the first pair of boots he could find and sprinting headlong out the door.

Upper courtyard. His poorly-executed studies on Dreaming hadn't been completely in vain; he could sense her presence, even if that sense was fading fast. He shouted for whatever guards were awake, _for Andraste's sake come over here_ , but he hadn't the time to check if they were following, so he just kept running. And as he turned down a long cloister, and saw her: Hooded. Dark-robed. And clambering fast over the wall.

Her hands were busy wrestling with the nooks in the stone, struggling to find the next foothold. Defenseless. He flung fire at her—but in that same moment, she _just_ managed to shimmy onto the battlements, and threw up a barrier before the flame struck her.

With an irritated snarl, Dorian dispelled her ward. As he did so, he saw her try to fade-step away—and then cry out as she failed. One of the protective enchantments around Skyhold must've prevented that.

Dorian seized the chance. With a yell, he leapt forward and threw a surge of ice in front of him, pushing it forward, forward, up the wall, toward her. It was right at the limit of his range, and he felt his arms aching with the effort—but the ice flew, and he was quick, too quick for her. It struck true, and for a moment, she froze, encased in crystal—then the ice cracked and shattered and she crumpled to the ground.

He watched her for a moment. She didn't stir, didn't so much as twitch. He'd meant to knock her out, not kill her. And he thought that was what he'd done. But you could never quite tell for sure, when people just crumpled like that.

"Right, let's get a look at you," Dorian muttered, jogging up a side stairwell, toward where she lay on the ramparts. As he drew close, he kept one hand still on his staff, poised to strike at any motion, edging nearer and nearer. When he came close enough, he nudged her side with his boot—there was a small breath, but no movement. He grabbed her by the shoulder, turned her over, whispered some light into his staff to get a better look—

No, no. He gritted his teeth, wanted to punch her, wanted to step away and pretend he didn't see this. He'd expected some Ventatori holdout, some disgruntled member of a rival family, some scoundrel of little importance, a nameless sellsword—anything but _her_. "Brielle," he whispered, and despite the hour and all his recent sleepless nights, for that instant, he felt fully, horribly awake.

* * *

The last time he'd seen her had only been a few years ago, back when he'd been at the Circle of Minrathous. Mousy brown hair. Puggish little nose. Carried a staff that was almost comically taller than she was, but by the Maker did she know how to use it. Of all the enchanters vying against him for the title of Senior Enchanter, she'd been his only proper competition.

She was a principled sort. Principled in a rather icy, imperious way—her bookishness made her keenly familiar with the proper, practiced ways of doing magic, and she did a poor job disguising her contempt for those who cut corners or lacked her attention for detail. Or, worse, the sorts of spoiled, talentless hacks who relied on blood to get ahead.

Even as a _child_ , Brielle had been that way. She and Dorian had apprenticed in the same circle, briefly, the Circle of Teraevyn, where Dorian lasted a whole eight months before getting kicked out. He'd started dabbling in blood magic that year—every teenager in Tevinter dabbled in blood magic at some point, Dorian simply figured he was getting a bit of a head start—and when he used his little side-hobby to conjure some spectacularly ornate spells during a contest among the apprentices, the only one who didn't seem duly impressed was Brielle, scowling at him from the back corner.

She caught him alone later that day. Cornered him in a spare moment, looked him dead in the eyes, and whispered: "You were trying to hide it, but I know. I know you were using blood magic."

Dorian stared down at the little scrub of a girl—who was she, had she even spoken to him before?—and then laughed. "Yes, and? Are you going to tell someone?"

Her word against the son of a magister? They both knew how that would go.

Brielle shook her head. "No." Her gaze held steady. "But you're only using it because you're not good enough without it."

Her little words stung. More than they should have. He had retorted with—something. Something lame. Brielle had simply walked away, and her accusation dug right under Dorian's skin—who was _she_ to say he wasn't good enough? Walking back to his quarters that evening, he told himself that her opinions were of no consequence, that she was merely jealous she couldn't achieve such prowess—and yet, he threw away his copy of Rudin's _Treatise on Sanguine Magicks_ that night, and didn't use any of its tricks again. That was a full two years before his father even broached the blood magic topic, the whole "last resort of a weak mind" speech and all that. Later, Dorian would become principled and vocal about his scorn for blood magic. But back then, he had just wanted to prove Brielle wrong.

And then she turned up at the edge of Skyhold, petty assassin for some contemptible magister's idle scheming. She would've thought such an errand was beneath her, once.

Dorian supposed, now, it was her turn to prove him wrong.

* * *

A minute later, a handful of templar-guards rushed up beside Dorian, brandishing their swords, forming a semicircle around Brielle, and asking him—questions. Completely sensible, reasonable questions— _what's going on? who's this? what did she do?_ —but all the adrenaline had rushed out of him quickly as it had come, and Dorian felt his tiredness crush over him, heavy like tar, making his head feel thick, making his mind muddy, making their questions insensible, impossible to parse. Their words rumbled around him like so many waves, and he just stood and stared blankly at Brielle's unconscious form, struggling to construe some plausible set of steps that would've led her from Tevinter to _here_.

But such inaction was dangerous with the lyrium-scent of recent magic still thick in the air. The guards started twitching—one jumped at a passing night-swift's shadow, and another tripped and nearly dropped his sword. Dorian knew, in some vague, distant way, that he had to tell them _something_.

"She's a mage," he managed at last. "A dangerous mage. And—a prisoner now, I suppose. Go—go lock her up and—keep watch over her, and _keep her from using magic_. However it is you templars do that."

Pitiful instructions, really, but that seemed to be all they needed. A few minutes later they had her clapped in irons, and she was just beginning to stir—not enough to talk, but he could see her fidgeting in discomfort. Dorian couldn't stand up any longer; his head felt so _heavy_. He turned and slouched himself against the battlements.

A moment later, Leliana arrived on the scene, eyes bright in the midnight darkness. Dorian tilted his head up and forced a wry smile. "Well, our little magically-themed whodunit has been solved. Turns out it wasn't Valerius after all. Or the butler, even. What a twist."

Leliana's expression was uncharacteristically soft. "Are you alright, Dorian?"

"Fine, fine. Nothing a little sleep won't fix." Or a lot of sleep. Dorian was starting to consider nodding off right here on the battlements. He didn't even have the energy to shiver from the cold.

Leliana's gaze then flickered to Brielle, and her eyes narrowed. "It is good you captured her, rather than killing her outright. This should not have been overlooked. I will have questions for her."

Leliana's tone made Dorian a bit queasy. He wanted to say, maybe there was a mistake. He wanted to say, there _must've_ been a mistake. Something they didn't understand. But he still couldn't think of how Brielle got here in the first place, let alone how she should've _not_ gotten here, so he just stared at Leliana, mute.

Then Cullen arrived—hair mussed, half-dressed, and face wrinkled like he'd caught a whiff of something foul.

"Captain Harold woke me," he said, sidling up to Leliana, "shouting about a rogue mage, and all of Skyhold being in danger, and needing a whole squad of templars in the dungeon—or something to that effect. He didn't quite seem to know what was happening."

His eyes fell on Brielle, who was just then being dragged away by the templars.

"I assume that's our mage," he added, coldly, and when he looked back to Leliana and Dorian, his lips were pulled tight. "Care to explain to me what this is all about? Either of you?"

Dorian and Leliana exchanged uneasy looks. It wasn't that Dorian had been _hiding_ this business from Cullen, exactly; he'd just thought of it as a personal matter, and had gone to Leliana with his personal problem, simple as that. Except, when his personal problem involved a rogue mage that ventured all the way into _Skyhold_ to get at him, maybe it wasn't quite a personal matter anymore, and probably one of them should've thought to let the commander know about it. Particularly with, oh, all the poorly-understood and highly-dangerous dream-magic going on.

Whups.

"That woman is from Tevinter," Leliana began, after an awkward silence, and began to relate the whole sorry tale. Except, she had a practiced way of speaking that was carefully vague at critical parts, which set Cullen to growling and pressing harder for details, and before long the two of them were shouting at each other.

Dorian saw his chance to slip away, and seized it. A bit cowardly of him; he deserved the shouting just as much as dear Leliana. But he'd simply have to owe her the favor. It ached to keep his head up, it ached to keep standing straight, it ached to even _think_. When he finally managed to stagger back to his corridors, he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

* * *

He slept through the night. And the dawn. And midday, and sunset. When he woke, twilight was just beginning to darken the sky, and his back was sore from lying down for so long, and for one blissful moment, his only thought was of how pleasant it had been to really, truly sleep for a change.

The next moment, of course, he remembered all that had happened, and he turned over and groaned into his pillow. What a _mess_. If he thought he stood a chance of falling back asleep, he would've tried just then, but no, he was too awake now.

He figured he should go to Leliana. Catch up on whatever had happened while he'd been asleep. Maybe she'd even questioned Brielle already, gotten some answers out of the girl. Probably, Dorian needed to talk to Brielle himself; he had his own questions. Probably he should get started on all that straightaway.

Instead, Dorian stood up, got dressed, and walked straight to the tavern.

He was surprised (and, perhaps, a touch offended) that no one was waiting for him outside his chambers. He _had_ fallen asleep for an _awfully_ long time, after all. He _could've_ died. Surely he was important enough to have someone checking on him?

But he supposed it _did_ make the whole shirking-his-responsibilities thing that much simpler, so he was glad for that. There was hardly a familiar face in the tavern, either, besides the barkeep—the Inquisition had grown so much as of late that the place was packed with dozens of bright-eyed recruits, and pilgrims, and what-have-you, but hardly any of the old guard. A great deal of them had moved on, he supposed. He pulled up a seat at the bar, frowning into the crowd. Cole had ghosted away to who-knows-where by now, and Cassandra was off doing whatever it was a Divine did, and the Inquisitor was off on some diplomatic trip or another…

When he realized he was hunting for the Iron Bull's face in the crowd, he shook himself, gestured for the barkeep, and ordered a pint of Ferelden beer. Sometimes, drink simply couldn't wait.

He downed the first pint quick enough. Second pint, too. When he stood for a moment to wipe someone else's spilled beer off his leg, he felt himself wobble a bit—he recalled that he hadn't actually _eaten_ anything for an entire day, and should probably be going a bit easier on the drink. But he ordered a third pint anyway, and he'd been a good ways into _that_ when, scanning the crowd again, he saw none other than Cullen standing in the center of the tavern.

The commander looked so awkward, still trussed up in all his armor, that Dorian had to laugh. From afar, he caught Dorian's eye, and strode over: "Dorian, I was looking for you," Cullen said, a little breathless. "Is now a good time?"

How sweet. So someone _had_ been checking on him.

"Now is a perfectly good time," Dorian drawled, pulling up a barstool and gesturing over it grandly. "Take a seat, commander."

Cullen looked at the wobbly little barstool, coughed into his hand, and remained standing. "Leliana updated me on this prisoner of yours. Brielle Bellarous. We've got her in a cell with two templars standing guard round the clock, though they're not sure what they should be keeping watch _for_ —can you tell me more about how this Dreaming magic works, what it looks like, anything at all?"

Dorian chuckled. "Does that seem like the sort of information I'd be keeping to myself, commander?"

Cullen's eyes went cold and flinty. "Just like how you told me about all this in the first place?" His voice was almost a growl. "Forgive me if I'm skeptical, apparently I've been kept out of this before—"

"Right," Dorian interrupted, wincing. "Right, sorry. I deserve that." Cullen relented, and Dorian pushed his pint idly across the counter, from one hand to the other, pensive. "But it's true that I don't know anything else. Nothing I haven't already told Leliana, anyway, and I'm sure she's debriefed you by now."

Cullen crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. "That's not really what I was hoping to go back to the guards with." He looked over his shoulder, at a corner where a dozen of his new recruits were huddled around a table, then back to Dorian. "I don't like it. Leliana says this person's information may be important to you, but—that kind of power—so much we don't know about it—seems too dangerous to keep around here. I'd sooner have her dead."

 _"_ Dead? _"_ Dorian said, a little too quickly, nearly knocking over his beer. Of course, she _did_ have to be judged at some point, and it was quite possibly a foregone conclusion anyway, the Inquisition couldn't have bloody _assassins_ getting amnesty—but the defensive babble came out of him almost unbidden. "Seems a bit severe to call for her death right off, don't you think? Brielle, she is—she was—she's sensible. Sensible enough. She can't be after anyone but me, that would—would impugn her sense of honor, you see, she shouldn't cause your little templars any trouble." He only slurred a little.

Cullen sighed and pulled a hand over his face. "Is there anything _else_ you can tell me about her, then? Anything to help us?"

Dorian stared very fixedly into his glass. What could he say? That he knew her, once. Just like he'd known Alexius once, before he'd joined the Ventatori. And like he'd known Felix once, before he died. And the ones before them—old lovers, friends, cousins, teachers. The stories only ever went one of two ways.

It was like a fated thing. Either you turned into the most wretched sort of Tevinter, or you got snuffed out trying to fight it.

Or you lingered in a Ferelden tavern like a coward.

"Leliana says you two were in a Circle together," Cullen pressed.

Dorian tilted his head to look at Cullen again. Or glare, rather. It wasn't Cullen's fault, exactly, but this whole line of questioning was _ruining_ the nice buzz he'd had going. Of course, Cullen didn't look exactly happy, either. Something about the commander's scowl reminded Dorian of when he'd seen the Cullen last week, storming down to the dungeon, and Dorian blurted a name: "Samson."

"What?"

Dorian's smile was a bit twisted, uncharacteristically stiff. "Tell me about Samson. _You_ two were in a Circle together, am I right? Let's hear about that."

For a commander, it was certainly easy to catch Cullen off-guard. "I'm—sorry, I'm not sure if I understand how this relates—"

"Then this isn't a good time."

"What?"

He only slurred his words a little: "There is music, and beer, and good company, and you are ruining it with all these— _questions_ —and you asked me if this was a good time, and I'm saying, no, it isn't. Come back later." He finished the last of his pint and slammed the empty glass down on the counter, as if for emphasis.

"When is _later_?"

"Later," Dorian said, without looking at Cullen. The commander lingered a moment, and scowled, and then sighed, and left him in peace.

Dorian still held the empty glass in his hand, very tightly. He would've rather liked to throw it at—something. Anything. But he had far too much Tevinter politeness for something so rash, so _common_.

He ordered another drink.

* * *

Finding a copy of Rudin's _Treatise on Sanguine Magicks_ had been even easier than Dorian had been expecting, even with a hangover. The next morning, it took maybe five minutes of pawing through a crate of seized Ventatori belongings before he found a volume, its slender black binding and gold-lettered cover familiar like a rash. Apparently, blood mages in the south acquired their talents solely through word-of-mouth, but in Tevinter, this little book was as common in highborn houses as fine china, or overpriced spices. Just better-hidden.

Merely picking up the book made his stomach turn. Like a black spot from pirate-lore, the thing was a curse and a portent wrapped in one. Last time he'd found a copy, it'd been on a desk in his father's estate. The same day that Dorian left for good.

What a precedent.

He took the book back to his nook in the library, where he proceeded to spend the next several hours pouring over the thing—he figured, the faster he got the information he needed, the sooner he could be done with the thing.

Sister Leliana passed by at some point, and she must have recognized the text as well: "I was not aware you studied blood magic," she commented lightly.

Dorian glared at her from over the top of his book. Waited for her to say something else. Leliana stared mutely back.

"I don't," Dorian said at last, sighing, closing the book and pushing it away from him. It was all he could do to keep from burying his face in his hands. "Others _do_ , though. Know thy enemy, and all that. I thought I might get a few ideas for protections."

"What sort of protections?"

"The kind that don't involve blood magic," he said, scowling. Maybe she was just curious, but he wasn't fond of this line of questioning. He looked back down at his notes, started scribbling something in the margin, if he looked busy maybe she'd go on—he tried that for all of two seconds before he threw the quill back down and locked eyes with the spymaster. "Sister Leliana, it's clear that your interest in this is more than academic. Or Inquisition-related. Or whatever you please." There was some heat to his voice, but mostly he sounded tired. "I'd like to know why."

Dorian thought she might play coy, but after only the briefest of pauses, she answered. "The Inquisition is now in a position of considerable influence and power. For how long, I cannot say—but I would see that influence used to bring peace, to bring lasting change, as far as it is able." Her eyes scanned the shelves around her, then fixed back on Dorian. "Tevinter will try to forget what happened here. If they forget, the Ventatori can rise again. Or others like them. You've seen what the consequences are."

Dorian stiffened. He knew his face probably looked _gruesome_ right about now, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Leliana's tone was mild as ever: "Gereon Alexius was a good man, tempted by awful circumstance. Others need not share his fate." She paused, nodding, as if she'd finished checking the numbers on some complex calculation. "You agree."

It was a statement, not a question. Of course he agreed.

"You are still at Skyhold. Why, I wonder?"

And of course he wanted to go home. He'd told the Inquisitor as much. Change things. Change minds. But a few extra months at Skyhold had seemed harmless enough; Tevinter could handle itself for _that_ long, surely. And then this dream-assassin had delayed things. But the excuses seemed thin and feeble even as he thought them. He hadn't booked passage home. He hadn't even picked a date.

"I would help you. I would make Tevinter better."

Except this was something he had to do for himself. Even if he hadn't yet. He would. He had to. Soon as he figured out _how_ to go without getting killed first. It wasn't just cowardice that kept him here, and it wasn't just ego that made him want to go—he told himself, he hoped—because he had little doubt Leliana _could_ do as she said. But it wouldn't mean anything at all if it came about from the Inquisition flexing its muscle, wouldn't be a real change at all—this time, Tevinter had to save Tevinter.

But he couldn't quite figure out how to explain that to Leliana. She was a little scary that way—too cunning, too persuasive, could probably talk him into anything, if he gave her the chance. So instead he said, "Let me talk to Brielle," which wasn't much of an answer. But Leliana seemed to take it for one, nodding and turning back into the keep.

He went back to his book—the Ventatori's book, rather. Started scribbling notes again. He was stalling, but it was productive stalling, stalling that had to get done. When he reached one of the last chapters, though—a portion on advanced mind-magics, and a particularly bloody ritual that looked a bit too familiar—he slammed the thing shut, and sighed. Probably the only book in the world that could make the prospect of going down to the dungeons appealing by comparison.

He went down to the dungeons alone, and spoke to no one on his way. If he paused for even a moment, he might lose his nerve.


End file.
